How Social Media is Harmful for One's Mental Health

The number of persons of using social media is rising consistently. Ospina stated that one-in-three of population are using the social media in the world. From the beginning as Facebook released, people start to use social media commonly and Facebook had become a leader among social media such as, Instagram, Twitter, WeChat, and so on. Social media did change the world. Those can help us to connect and draw closer the relationships, especially with friends, colleagues and even acquaintance. It seems like it is beneficial to people’ daily life but the truth is that there are still problems occur, and it brings impacts on human being as a result of overusing social media. The statement 'social media is harmful' is the main for this essay as it argues that social media is harmful on human’s mental health because it makes people feel stressed and anxious and it lowers self-esteem, even though it is convenient for building relationships. 

Overusing social media will make people feel stressed and anxious since it is addictive. In a Baylor University study published in Personality and Individual Differences, researchers found that those who are essentially glued to their devices were 'unstable' and were trying to change their moods. In addition, Abel, Buff & Burr noted that people who check their phones every other minute are trying to find something — anything — to make themselves feel better. Recently, JWT Intelligence Communications have done a research which discovered that nearly 70% of adults admit to experiencing feelings of missing out. It demonstrates that the impacts of overusing social media on people’ habit and it makes them become more anxiety. In their daily life, it is hard to commit themselves to turn off and put down the phone for a while; checking for updates, sending messages, keep scrolling the screen, and so on. As a result, it became the acts as obsessive checking behavior. In short, it causes less interactions with their friends, parents and collogues in the real life since it seems like the connection on the social media and internet is more important their lives.

Another social media brings harmful impacts on people’ self-esteem by keep comparing with others posts and profiles, and it leads to people to feel depression. Feinstein, Hershenberg, Bhatia, Latack, Meuwly & Davila found that there is negative social comparison on Facebook, and it leads people to focus more on negative emotion as a result of association with symptoms of distress. In addition, Jan, Soomro and Ahmad reveal in their study that people who spend less than half an hour daily on Facebook have a mean score of 25.25 for self-esteem; people who spend 1-3 hours daily on Facebook have a mean score of 16.7358 for self-esteem; people who spend 3-5 hours daily on Facebook have a mean score of 12.1951 for self- esteem; people who spend more than 5 hours daily on Facebook have a mean score of 8.25 for self-esteem. Similarly, Romero mentions that if Facebook is used to see how well an acquaintance is doing financially or how happy an old friend is in his relationship — things that cause envy among users — use of the site can lead to feelings of depression. Researches prove that what are those huge impacts affect people’ self-esteem; the more time they use social media, the deeper impacts on their way to look themselves. People become more aware to their own appearances as seeing the posts updates by friends and even strangers while they feel depressed and low self-esteem when they are seeing somebodies are living better life than themselves or seeing the photo of a group of friends hanging out and they are sitting at home alone.

Critics believe that social media can help them to improve and develop the relationships with others. Because people do not have to go to the place which is far away from their hometown to visit their relatives, social media can help them to resolve their problem and reduce their cost. However, most of the people using social media to communicate with the friends only have digital interactions more than the realistic one. Eighty percent of people agree that social media did destroy real human relationship. It is easier to communicate with others via online since they have already shaped themselves to the best by posting their exaggerated posts on their profiles before they are ready to interact to make new friends. This is an unhealthy and incorrect way to build real relationships.

In conclusion, there are negative effects of using social media on people’ mental health. Stress and anxiety result in the act of obsessive checking behavior and fear of missing out for the updates of social media. Moreover, people have lower self-esteem since they increasingly tend to compare themselves to others from their posts and profiles. Although social media may be a tool for people to communicate with others conveniently, the more that social media change the way people think and lead their lives negatively.

References

• Abel, J. P., Buff, C. L. & Burr, S. A. (2016, January). Social media and the fear of missing out: Scale Development and Assessment. Journal of Business & Economics Research, 14(1), 33-44. DOI: Cepeda, M. (2015). Good Housekeeping. Retrieved from https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/wellness/a27046/phone-checking-depression/ Comment by Teacher: small caps
• Debate Organization. N.A. Does social media destroy real human relationships? Retrieved from https://www.debate.org/opinions/does-social-media-destroy-real-human-relationships
• Feinstein, B. A., Hershenberg, R., Bhatia, V., Latack, J. A., Meuwly, N. & Davila, J. (2013). Negative Social Comparison on Facebook and Depressive Symptoms: Rumination as a Mechanism. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 2(3), 161-170. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/46fa/bd593314ccd45001c1c8db128fe4431cc282.pdf
• Jan, M., Soomro, S. A. & Ahmad, N. (2017). Impact of Social Media on Self-Esteem. European Scientific Journal, 13(23), 329-341. Retrived from https://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/viewFile/9815/9318
• Ospina, E. O. (2019). Our World Data Organization. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media
• Romero, C. (2016). Talonmarks. Retrieved from https://www.talonmarks.com/opinion/2016/05/04/social-media-creates-unrealistic-life-expectations/